Payback (11 page)

He took another breath. “So now you want to ask me if the product could survive. I don't know. Maybe the real question is if civilization can survive. I don't know. The only thing I
know
is whatever's going on here is way beyond the question of quality control. Or of any control. The controls aren't working. Our assumptions aren't working. The social contract's been broken with an axe and your lawyer can't fix it. We seem to be living where the rules don't apply and the more rules we add, the
more
they don't apply.” He shrugged. “I don't know what to do about that. I don't think any of us do. The only thing I
can
do is offer a reward.” He squinted at the room. “Say half a million dollars for any information that'll lead us to the killer.”

Zoom lenses zoomed; hands shooting up at him from all across the floor. Mitchell looked around again, slowly, and now for the first time, at ease.

Then he saw the redhead. Watching him quizzically and leaning on the wall. First thing that came to him was, Jesus—Joanna. Then he thought, uh-uh; couldn't be; no. Then he said, “The man by the window in the tweed.”

***

She was sitting there waiting on the hood of his car.

Forget it; he couldn't run away from his car and besides, he was dreaming.

He wasn't sure if it was a good dream or a bad dream. He wasn't really sure about anything today except that anything could happen. The car could levitate. Ghosts could swim around the parking lot air.

He stopped, lit a cigarette, and peered across the lot.

Thirty yards away, and she could've been anyone—just another shined-up frizzy redhead with an angle and a pose. From twenty: Joanna. Fifteen: she was Jo, and he thought about running but he wasn't sure where—going towards or away? He could say to her, reasonably, “Sorry, miss, I think you got a little bit confused.” He could say, “Who me?” He could say, indignantly, “What are you talking about, lady? I've never been to Elton, Colorado in my life.” He could say anything or nothing. No comment. No capish.

Five yards away and she was tilting her head at him. Hair like a halo made of sunrise and fire. A yellow-rose sweater and a cream-colored skirt that was almost to her ankles. Funky little shoes. Eyes like a fawn. Smart fawn; nothing you could toss on your fender.

She could say, “Do I know you?” He could look at her, smile, say, “No.—Would you like to?” All things considered, he could do it like that.

She said, “Mitch?”

He said, “You really look beautiful, Joanna.”

10

He said in the car: “How it goes is, you're not gonna ask me any questions and that way I'm not gonna tell you any lies.”

She said: “I don't know. How can I not ask you any questions?”

He said, “I don't know.”

He said to her, “You wouldn't believe it how I've missed you.”

She said, “I don't believe it. You know what it's been?”

He said, “Eighteen years.”

She said, “Nineteen years.”

And she said, “I've missed you.”

He grinned in the mirror. He didn't have the right to any happiness today but he couldn't seem to help it. He wasn't even certain if he trusted her or not.

He said, “Do you believe you could trust me for a while?”

She said, “I don't know.”

He said, “I don't blame you.”

He said, “There's only one other thing I want to ask. You can ask it of me and I'll answer it.”

“What?”

“Are you married?”

“No.—Are you?”

“Never,” he said. “And I lied, because I've really got one other question.”

“What?”

“What time you want to meet me for dinner?”

***

Standing at the open window in his living room, sun going down, vodka and tonics, Brubeck fiddling with “Time on My Hands” and the sky turning purple and Mitchell couldn't move. Joanna smelled of Joy and he could stand there indefinitely, breathing her in. He didn't want to speak. She was standing there next to him, dressed in something longish and fuzzy and pink that reminded him partially of cotton candy. He wanted to touch her but he knew if he touched her he wouldn't ever stop.

“So,” she said. “What can we talk about, huh?”

He said, “Lots of things.”

“The weather. Current events.”

He said, “I'd like to skip it with the current events. I'm kind of currented out. Past events, maybe.” He moved from the window and settled on the couch. He said, “Listen—this is kind of difficult, Joanna.”

“Oh boy,” she said.

“What?”

“You're the second man to tell me ‘this is difficult' today.”

“Hey listen. You think it's the day?” Mitchell said. “I looked at my horoscope, it told me, Forget it.” He watched her intently as she paced around the room—moving to the bookshelves, moving to the bar. “What we have to get settled is the role of the reporter. Like are you or aren't you.”

She looked at him. “I am.”

“I'm aware of that,” he said. “What I'm asking is, now, this minute. What I'm asking is, we aren't doing Items for the Press. For the purpose of the Items, I'll be Robert R. Mitchell.”

“From Haeger, Wisconsin.”

He nodded. “You did a little research,” he said. “Right now,” he said, “a lot of my life is in your hands. And my company's life. Just so we both understand this, Joanna. I've been thinking all day I should've shaken my head at you and busted for the hills.”

She leaned against the wall. “Okay,” she said. “So? Why didn't you?”

“Or ask me something easy,” Mitchell offered. “We could talk about the moth that said fuck it to the flame.”

She smiled at him. “Oh.”

“Big surprise,” he said, “right?”

She was floating through the room again. “Listen, if you want to make it easy on yourself, you could've shaken your head till it tumbled, Mr. Catlin, I'd've chased you through the hills. I mean, feature it. A girl meets her one true love and then
drops
it?”

He looked at her. “You want to roll it back?”

She was standing in front of him. “What?”

“Do the part about the one true love.”

“Oh,” she said, sitting. “Well …” She was looking very slowly in his eyes. “My God. You're my entire childhood, Mitch. You're my womanhood, I guess. I think about the whole first half of my life, I can't remember not loving you—”

“Yeah. Yes you can. That weekend. The last time I saw you in Aspen. You remember?”

“I remember I acted like an ass.”

“Well … so did I.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “You acted like a stud.”

“No I didn't,” Mitchell said. “Not with you. Not ever. With the groupies, I did. I was—what? eighteen? On my own for two years? Jesus, you were still back in Elton with your parents, and I was … I don't know. I didn't
know
what I was. I was the son of a drunk. I was a kid on the road. I was a bellhop—and suddenly, bingo, I'm a white-hot hope for the Olympics.” He shrugged. “I was trying to show off a little, huh?”

“Well …” she said. “Yeah. Maybe. A little.”

“Conceited … insufferable … shallow … absurd—what else did you call me?”

“Oh God,” Joanna said, “I was jealous, that's all. There were groupies all over you. Blondes. I thought they were all gorgeous and I thought I was losing you.” She lifted her shoulders. “I was eighteen too.”

“Youth,” he said disgustedly. “Youth really sucks.”

“Uh-huh,” she said grinning. “I remember that too.”

He was touching her sweater, just the sleeve of it. “What the hell is this?” he said.

“Angora,” she told him.

“I see,” he said slowly. “I think I'll be reincarnated as a sheep.”

“I think it's a rabbit.”

“Jesus,” he said. “It's the Easter Bunny, huh?”

“Hey listen. I wish you wouldn't do that,” she said.

“What?”

“That.”

“Why?”

“Because you're making me crazy, that's why.”

“Oh boy,” he said, “you want to have a talk about crazy.”

“I think we ought to turn off the music for a while. Or open a window.”

“Or take a cold shower. Together.”

“I think you ought to finish your story.”

“My story,” he said. “I went into the army. I got out of the army. Then I met a person named Jeremy Tate and he offered me a job.”

“A job,” she said flatly. “The last thing on earth you ever wanted was a job. Why'd you quit skiing?”

“You'll see that,” he said. He paused. “I was thinking we could order in later.”

“Like tomorrow,” she said.

“I was thinking … July.”

***

He couldn't believe it. Not just a body, Joanna's body; moving underneath him, moving him. Sometimes he'd have to pull back just to look at her. “Jesus. Look at you,” he'd say, “Just
look
at you,” and feel himself grinning like a fool and then see she was watching him the same kind of way. And then he'd go off, get lost, get tumbled in the time machine again, start dreaming in the hayloft in Elton, Colorado, everything ahead of them, everything in place. He said to her, I think we invented this, you know? She said to him, We ought to be disgustingly rich. Then he said nothing, exploring in the hay again; then he was a rocket on the Fourth of July.

***

She opened her eyes now and looked at his face, his eyes half-open, his yellow eyelashes beating on her hand. He made a growl of contentment. She could pet him like a cat. She could taste the salt of his sweat with her tongue, lick him like a salt lick. She said, “Oh boy.” He was idling inside her. She said to him, “So that answers
that
question, huh?”

He was silent for a time. “Was it ever a question?”

“No,” she said quietly. He chewed at her ear. “I don't ever want to move.”

“I don't want you to.”

“No, I mean ever.”

“Uh-huh. I know. So do I.”

She wanted to tell him she was syrup and cream, that she wanted to pour herself over him forever. She wanted to tell him she was still sixteen and so painfully in love with him it hurt just to breathe. She wanted to tell him and she tightened her lips because she didn't want to tell him.

His telephone rang.

He stiffened, relaxed, went out of her. “I'll take it in the living room,” he said.

***

She heard him hang up. Then she heard him pacing in the living room awhile. Not just a while. She timed it on the clock. She lit up a cigarette and watched the little second hand sweep around the dial. It swept seven times. He came back with a straight shot of whisky in his hand, a cigarette in his mouth and a robe on his body. He shook his head slowly and came over to the bed. “Aprѐs,” he said. “The old postcoital phone call from the cops.”

“Oh,” she said carefully.

He sat on the bed again. “They want me to go over to the precinct for a while.”

“Now?”

“That's what I said: Now?”

“And then they said …”

He nodded.

“Any bulletins?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I don't know. They didn't say. They were cryptic.” He seemed to be staring at the wall. He pulled at his whisky and was silent for a time.

“I have to talk to you, Joanna.”

“No, I don't think so.”

He looked at her.

“There's something I don't like about your tone.”

“Serious.”

“Deadly. Also, I don't like your outfit,” she said. “I don't like talking to an un-naked man. It makes me feel naked.”

“You're right,” he said, stripping. “Any better?”

“Not much. That's an absolutely terrible leg you've got, Mitchell.” She reached for it tenderly and fingered it. “If this is how you get the Silver Star, I'd've settled for the Bronze. Is this erogenous, Mitchell? I'm touching it, the rest of you is—”

“Hey. Cut it out.”

“I know. I know. ‘This is
dif
ficult, Joanna and you go make it harder.'”

“Oh God,” Mitchell said.

“Go on,” she said, taking her hands off him. “Talk.”

He wanted to smile at her, take her in his arms again, make love to her again, but he didn't know why the police had called him in, what they wanted, what they knew.

He said, “First of all, I'm not a very moral personality.”

“Oh yes you are. You're just not conventionally moral but you're moral.”

“Will you stop defending me?”

“No. Somebody has to.”

“I'm doing pretty nicely at defending myself. In fact I am possibly the best-defended character you'll ever want to meet.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I've done something criminal, Joanna. I've committed a crime. Mostly, I thought it was a victimless crime but I might've been wrong. I don't know how you'd judge it.
I
don't know how, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is that most of my life has been a fraud. I'm dancing on a wire. Wire keeps shaking and I think it's gonna break.”

“Go on,” she said carefully.

“No, that's the point. It's all I want to tell you. I owed you that part of it but not any more. If you want to walk out of here this evening, tomorrow, day after, whenever, I'll have to let you go.”

She was staring now. She angled her head at him, staring. “So let me get it straight now. As long as I don't ask you what, I can stay.—Is that right?”

He shook his head. “You're not listening, Joanna. I told you I'm a criminal. I'm close to getting caught.”

“And you wouldn't feel close enough to trust me.”